Quick on his feet for 'Pippin'

By Deborah Martin :
November 7, 2013

Tony Award nominee Chet Walker rehearses with Trinity University students for the musical “Pippin” in the Stieren Theater.

Director/choreographer Walker works with students Jonathan Moore and Alejandro Moore. Walker has taught musical theater to autistic kids in Serbia and worked on shows in Israel. “You kind of have to be open to anything,” he says.

Photo By Robin Jerstad/For the Express-News

Tony Award nominee director/choreographer Chet Walker works Trinity University students Jonathon Moore and Alejandro Moore in the school's production of the musical "Pippin" in the Stieren Theater as assistant director Jennifer Rapp looks on.

Photo By Robin Jerstad/For the Express-News

Tony Award nominee director/choreographer Chet Walker works with students in the Trinity University production of the musical "Pippin" in the Stieren Theater.

Photo By Robin Jerstad/For the Express-News

Tony Award nominee Chet Walker rehearses with Trinity University students for the musical "Pippin" in the Stieren Theater.

Broadway director and choreographer Chet Walker is all about saying yes.

Would he be willing to come to Serbia to work with autistic kids? Yes. Would he like to come to Tel Aviv to choreograph “The Producers”? Absolutely. How about spending a few weeks at Trinity University as part of the Stieren Arts Enrichment Series, directing and choreographing a student production of “Pippin”? Why not?

The musical, which follows a young man's quest for fulfillment, opens Friday at Trinity.

Directing and choreographing weren't the only tasks Walker fulfilled during his stay here. He also gave a lecture about his career, and saying yes to things was the big take-away from it.

“I told them how (whether) you're coming up, you're coming down, you just don't know where you're going to be,” said Walker, 59. “So you kind of have to be open to anything.”

Saying yes has worked out pretty well for Walker. He started dancing on Broadway when he was a teenager; the original run of “Pippin” was his second professional credit. Most recently, he choreographed the circus-themed revival of “Pippin” on Broadway, a big-buzz show for which he received a Tony nomination and a slew of other awards. (His favorite is the Fred and Adele Astaire Award for Choreography “because that's why you do the things you do, is because of that man.”)

His decision to come to Trinity while “Pippin” is still wowing crowds on Broadway owes something to serendipity. The university's theater department had lined up someone else as part of the Stieren series this fall; when that deal fell apart in May, there was some scrambling to find a replacement.

Tim Francis, who teaches in the theater department and was spearheading the guest artist residency, turned to the Internet.

The first person he seriously pursued to take charge of “Pippin” wasn't available. As it happens, that choreographer and Walker share an agent, who had mentioned the “Pippin” project to him. Walker, the agent told Francis, had worked extensively with Bob Fosse, who choreographed and directed the original “Pippin” for Broadway. And Walker was willing to come work on Trinity's production.

“I just stared at the phone for a second,” Francis said. “All I could say was, 'Are you joking?' Oddly enough, it was really that easy.”

Well, almost that easy. There had to be some negotiating around Walker's schedule. He had to leave before opening night, so an assistant director had to be lined up who could take over once he leaves. But that was do-able.

“I thought, we are idiots if we don't take this and run with it,” said Francis, who is also designing the lighting for “Pippin.” “Of course, we were terrified of what he would be like.

“But it's been delightful working with him. I can already tell he's doing wonderful work with our students and will make them do or guide them to do things they never thought possible.”

“Pippin” is about a young man's search for meaning. His quest takes him onto the battlefield and into a series of fleeting interests, including religion and art; he ends up in an exhausted heap and is taken into the home of Catherine, a young widow who finds herself drawn to him.

Sarah Perkins, a fresh-faced blonde who is playing Catherine at Trinity, said she was a little anxious about auditioning for Walker.

“Everyone gets kind of nervous when we have a guest artist, because we don't know his directing style or what he's going to look for,” she said.

She looked up Walker's bio on the Internet, and found some YouTube videos of him dancing. All of that made her more nervous, though that apprehension eased considerably once she started working with him.

“He definitely knows how to get good work from us without being cruel or criticizing us or making it difficult,” said the 19-year-old, who is majoring in both psychology and theater.

At a recent rehearsal, Perkins and Jonathan Moore, who plays the title role, worked on “Kind of Woman,” the song Catherine sings to the bed-bound Pippin. Walker joined the students onstage, walking through what he wanted from Perkins and softly singing the lyrics.

He handed the scene over to the actors, jumping off the stage to take a seat in the front row to watch. He gently teased Perkins about her tendency to glance off into the wings, where, he noted, there are no ticket-holders.

“Who are you singing to? No one,” he said.

She started catching herself at it, and the scene got a little deeper with each go-round. Walker pushed her to keep in mind that every movement and gesture needed to have something behind it.

“You have to keep thinking about why you're doing what you do,” he said. “You have to figure out what it is you're saying with your gestures.”

Walker learned how to deal with performers, he said, from Fosse. They first crossed paths in the original production of “Pippin” in 1972. It was Walker's second spin on the Great White Way, following his debut in the revival of “On the Town.” That wasn't exactly a fairytale experience.

“I didn't understand, at 16, what I was doing,” he said. “I had no idea. It just didn't click for me.

“By the time I got to Mr. Fosse, I understood — OK; this is special. Not to negate any of the other work that I did, but I don't think I understood that not everybody gets this opportunity.”

He and Fosse clicked. And the legend became a mentor to Walker, a relationship that lasted for the rest of Fosse's life. Fosse died in 1987.

“I was asked the other day, 'What did he teach you?' It wasn't so much about theater as it was about humanity, about how to be with people, how to listen,” he said. “Not everyone agrees with me on this one, but I never heard him raise his voice to people. I never heard him get angry.

“In my world, he was a very humble man. And a very sweet and misunderstood man.”

Walker owes the second act of his career to Fosse. He had retired from performing in the early '80s. He opened a dance studio in California, and thought that's where he would live out his days. Then he got a call from Gwen Verdon, frequently referred to as Fosse's muse.

“She said, 'Bob wants to see you right away,'” Walker said.

Fosse was at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles; Walker wandered through the maze of dressing rooms, trying to find him.

“All of the sudden, the door opened, and it was, 'Oh. You're blond.' And that was it, and we were off,” he said. “That was his way of saying, 'You've been gone so long and you haven't called.'”

Fosse brought him on to be a dance captain for his 1986 revival of “Sweet Charity.” And that revived Walker's stage career.

In addition to taking part in a range of Fosse-oriented projects — including “Fosse,” a Tony-winning look at his mentor's signature choreography — he has done a lot of international projects.

“I get so much work around the world because they want to understand the American musical,” he said.

That includes some gigs he's gotten through the State Department as a cultural ambassador. That's how he ended up teaching musical theater to autistic kids in Serbia. He's also worked on a few shows in Tel Aviv, including “The Producers,” though he did turn down an offer to direct “Fiddler on the Roof” there.

“That's the one time I said no,” he said. “I went, 'Really? You want me? Seriously?' Because I don't think I have the knowledge to do that. I haven't earned that.”

One thing he doesn't spend a lot of time on is looking back. That's something else he learned from Fosse.

“What I'm doing is the most important thing, not what I've done,” he said. “I always tried to get Mr. Fosse to come back and see shows that he had done that I was a part of, and there was always somewhat of a hesitancy of going. And I never understood that until I started choreographing and directing. I totally get it. It's not that you don't want to; it's that it's hard to go back and see what you did. You go back and look and it's evolved. As life evolves, as people evolve, it evolves.”